Jennifer Aniston sat down with CNN for a quickie little four-and-a-half minute interview, and nothing much happens. I mean, of course, “love happens” because that’s the name of her movie, get it? I have to say this – Jennifer Aniston has been building her whole life for this promotional tour. Her sort of girlish ruminations on “love happening” and all of the cloying questions about making relationships work, it’s all right up her self-help alley. Here’s a transcript of part of the interview… note how quickly she backtracks when the reporter comes close to saying her ruminations contradict what Oprah teaches:

CNN: What does it take to make love happen?
JA: I think you have to relinquish control. As I don’t think it’s something you can control or really choose. You know, it sorta of chooses you.
CNN: Being open to it…
JA: Being open to it and being open to what form it comes in, what package it’s delivered to you in… and people have ways, ‘Well, it’s supposed to look like this’ or ‘No, I won’t do this’. They have all these rules already sorta preset ideas of what the person’s supposed to be, how it’s supposed to be, when it’s supposed to be, all of these plans…and then…
CNN: And then you’ve got Oprah out there telling you make a list of every single thing you want, and it’ll come to you.
JA: I think that’s different than… but it’s not about what you…what you want, the quality of the person – a kind person, a funny person, you know, a nurturing person.

[Transcribed from CNN Video]

So you shouldn’t have a preset idea of what love is going to look like (when it “happens”) except when Oprah tells you to make a list of everything you want in a man, and how you should reject any guy who doesn’t match up to the list? Aniston is giving me a tension headache.

There is some confusion when the CNN reporter asks her about her interview in Australian Harper’s Bazaar (which we covered Monday), when she was asked “Why do you think the romance goes out of a relationship?” Her response at the time was: “I think it’s laziness. I really do. I think a good relationship is about collaboration. That’s the way to go in a relationship. I think you just need to talk to each other. Say what you need. Say what you want. That way it’s not threatening. You just need to say, ‘This is important to me.’ Don’t expect your mate to read your mind.”

Jennifer got confused when the CNN reporter asked her about her “lazy” comment from Bazaar, and she says she thought she said it to Elle. She might have – she says a lot of the same stuff in most of her interviews, but the first and only time I think I’ve ever read her blaming “laziness” on a relationship’s decline was in Bazaar. In the CNN interview, Aniston agrees with herself, saying “Well, I think that with anything, if you’re lazy it withers and dies. Your work… your flowers…love. It all takes attention to… things.” Dude… she listed flowers before love. Classic.

The CNN reporter also asks her at one point about the Elle/Bazaar (who knows at this point) quote, where Jennifer was asked, “Do you think that women in general do too much in relationships?” Jennifer replied: “Oh yeah. I think that’s because it’s just instinctual as a woman to be the caretaker of your home. Women complain that men don’t do enough, but it’s your own fault. You train your man to do nothing. You can’t blame someone for not knowing what his or her job should be if you don’t ask for it right off the bat.”

In the CNN interview, Jennifer comes close to disagreeing with herself on that point, saying “I think not ‘too much’ maybe just working hard to allow a man to feel comfortable in a room. Sort of. Um… women can do too much, over-doting on somebody, like you’re selling a car, when you’re just in a relationship.” “Over-doting” is my new favorite verb. Must. Use. Today.

Jennifer talks more about “love happening” in her normal hippie-dippy self-help-speak. I mean, yeah, some of what she’s saying I agree with, but only because she’s just regurgitating clichés that are clichés for a reason, you know? You have to “learn how to be vulnerable” and “love isn’t easy”. Please, more pearls of wisdom, Mahatma Aniston!

Towards the end of the interview, she sort of goes off on a tangent talking about “love happening” and she says, “It’s not the longevity of a relationship that… that, uh, that shows it’s success, I think it’s the… you know… you have a really positive two-year experience that really taught you something, I don’t think that determines the success or failure.” When was Jennifer’s last two-year relationship again?

Here’s Jennifer on the set of The Bounty in Queens, NY on 8/24/09. Images thanks to WENN.com .